Machine to Machine Solutions Featured Article

The MolluSCAN Eye Project was launched to monitor changes in the pollution levels in oceans and it heavily leverages machine to machine (M2M) technology in order to gather data and determine trends. The project is using robust machine to machine solutions to track pollution levels by monitoring sea animals and delivering the data attained directly to researchers.

Telit Wireless (News - Alert) Solutions, a provider of high-quality M2M solutions, products and services, chas revealed that its cellular M2M technology is a contributor to the MolluSCAN Eye Project, helping the multidisciplinary group of basic researchers and university professors including biologists, electronics specialist, mathematicians, and webmasters gather data about water quality based on the behavior of oysters.

Telit’s technology has been highlighted as “cleanliness biosensors” to electronically monitor movement and behavior of bivalves such as oysters, giant clams, and Icelandic scallops.

Researchers who are working on the project explained that when exposed to polluted water, a bivalve closes its shell and in extreme pollution levels, it dies and the shell gapes with the valves completely open. Observations were made on bivalve behavior but it has proven to be very complex as bivalve can change dramatically after exposure to even very low levels of pollution. So, the project decided to make use of very light electromagnets weighing less than one gram to monitor the valve’s opening movements.

The remote electronic monitoring system enabled by Telit is composed of two units. One unit is submersed near to the animals that retrieves data and sends it above water to the other dry unit, which transmits the data it retrieves over a cellular network to the master server at the project’s lab using a Telit UC864-G GSM/GPRS module.

Dominikus Hierl, chief marketing officer at Telit Wireless Solutions, commented, “The MolluSCAN Eye project represents real evolution in environmental sciences. It is easy to envision a new growing field of applied science emerging from the success of this project. A broad array of types of connected biosensors deployed everywhere helping people and governments clean up our planet and keep an eye on our environment as the world’s population grows. Telit is proud to be a part of this experiment and this new science.”